User:Pá mamūnám ontā́ bán/თქარინ

თქარინ, pronounced /tʰkʰarin/, means "the language".

Possibly known in English as Thecharian /θɛkɑːɹiːən/.

In <whatever-this-language-is-actually-called> English is known as ინგლისი /inglisi/.

Thinking of calling this language "Dagarian" in English and დაგარი (თქარინ) natively. Thoughts?

Maybe დაგარი is related to the word for "people" or "nation". It's got nothing to do with Dagestan.

Background information

A language spoken in central and western Georgia.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	მ /m/	ნ /n/
Plosive	ფ /pʰ/ პ /pʼ/ ბ /b/	თ /tʰ/ ტ /tʼ/ დ /d/		ქ /kʰ/ კ /kʼ/ გ /g/	ყ /qʼ/
Affricate		ც /tsʰ/ წ /tsʼ/ ძ /dz/	ჩ /tʃʰ/ ჭ /tʃʼ/ ჯ /dʒ/
Fricative	ჶ /f/ ვ /v/	ს /s/ ზ /z/	შ /ʃ/ ჟ /ʒ/	ხ /x/ ღ /ɣ/		ჰ /h/
Approximant		რ /r/ ლ /l/	/j/*	/w/*

*The semi-vowels /j, w/ only occur in diphthongs and are not consistently represented in the orthography.

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	ი /i/	უ /u/
Mid	ე /e/	ო /o/
Open	ა /a/

Diphthongs do actually occur even though they are badly represented in the orthography.

Stress

Stress falls on the penultimate syllable.

If a word begins with a phonemic consonant cluster, it falls on the first (which may also be the penultimate).

Phonotactics

Template: (C)(C)(V)(C)(C)

Permitted complex onsets?

Permitted complex codas?

Sonority hierarchy?

Phonological processes and allophones

Onsets often contain "harmonic clusters" containing two similar consonants stops, e.g. aspirated, ejective or voiced. In reality these are often pronounced with an intervening schwa.

• "language"; თქარა; /tʰkʰara/; [tʰəkʰɑra]

Voicing assimilation is regressive.

Vowels undergo phonetic alteration after /q’/:

• /a/ > [ɑ]
• /e/ > [ɛ]
• /i/ > [ɨ]
• /o/ > [ɒ]
• /u/ > [ʉ]

As well as before /r, l/.

• /a/ > [ɑ]
• /e/ > [ɛ]
• /i/ > [ɪ]
• /o/ > [ɔ]
• /u/ > [ʊ]

Running speech

Maybe aspiration gets dropped in running speech and replaced by a modal/creaky voice distinction?

In words where final nasal do occur, they are often dropped (leaving behind no nasalisation of the preceding vowel).

Orthography

Mkhedruli and Romanisation

• Georgian alphabet (Mkhedruli)
• Latin (scholarly)
• Latin (common)

Other writing systems

• Armenian
• Cyrillic
• Greek (rare)
• Arabic (rare)

Punctuation

• Clauses are preferably separated by commas
• The semi-colon is used more extensively than in English
• Ordinal numbers are commonly abbreviated to the corresponding Roman numerals
• Direct speech...

Case system

There are four grammatical cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive.

• The nominative is used to denote the subject of a verb and also fulfils the vocative role.
• The accusative denotes the direct object of a transitive verb. It is also used to indicate motion towards something.
• The dative is used to mark the indirect object of a transitive verb as well as indicating a location. It is used with many other prepositions, too (e.g. "with"). The dative is sometimes used to denote the "quirky subject" of verbs (that is the semantic but not grammatical subject); this usually marks lack of volition, experience or feelings; it is common to find impersonal constructions where the dative is used in this way. In addition, there are some verbs whose direct object is marked by the dative case; such verbs are often verbs of hindrance, service and use.
• The genitive denotes possession or relationship, a lack or replacement of something as well as provenance. As with the dative, some verbs mark their direct object with the genitive case; these are usually verbs of request and attainment.

There is an archaic fifth case: the instrumental. This is formed identically to the dative except for the fact that ს is replaced by ტ.

Nouns

There is no grammatical gender.

All nouns end in vowels; one of -ა, -ი, -ო.

Plurals are formed by adding the suffix -ი after the desinence.

The indefinite declension is given below:

These declensions need muddying up a little

	ჭაკა "dog"		მქარი "face"		პირო "paper"
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ჭაკა	ჭაკაი	მქარი	მქარიი	პირო	პიროი
Accusative	ჭაკამ	ჭაკამი	მქარიმ	მქარიმი	პირომ	პირომი
Dative	ჭაკას	ჭაკასი	მქარის	მქარისი	პიროს	პიროსი
Genitive	ჭაკიშ	ჭაკიში	მქარიშ	მქარიში	პირიშ	პირიში

The definite is given in the following section.

Definiteness marking

Definiteness is marked only on nouns; unmarked noun are by default indefinite.

This is done by adding the suffix -ინ to the end of the noun (replacing the first vowel of the desinence).

In the accusative this suffix becomes -იმ.

Table given below:

These too

	ჭაკა "dog"		მქარი "face"		პირო "paper"
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	ჭაკინ	ჭაკინი	მქარინ	მქარინი	პირინ	პირინი
Accusative	ჭაკიმ	ჭაკიმი	მქარიმ	მქარიმი	პირიმ	პირიმი
Dative	ჭაკინს	ჭაკინსი	მქარის	მქარისი	პირინს	პირინსი
Genitive	ჭაკინშ	ჭაკინში	მქარინშ	მქარინში	პირინშ	პირინში

Adjectives

Adjectives decline identically to nouns.

Any noun can be used as an adjective.

Adjectives precede the noun they qualify and agree in both number and case.

Comparatives are formed by using the suffix -ეხ-. This is placed before the desinence.

Superlatives are formed by adding the prefix სა- to the comparative form.

From სა- comes the word სახი meaning "most" or "best".

Adverbs

Adjectives can be turned into adverbs simply by removing the desinence.

Time, place, manner, degree/quantity, proadverbs, other

Prepositions

Prepositions require the use of one of three cases: accusative, dative or genitive.

Many prepositions may take more than one case. A change in case may indicate motion or other semantic change.

The accusative is usually used to indicate motion towards, the dative location and the genitive motion away from.

Numerals

All numerals end in -უ and are invariable. That is, with the exception of რიმა, მილიონ and მილიარდ.

Numerals are placed before the noun they modify and the noun is never pluralised.

The noun carries the case marking for the numeral.

Cardinal numbers can be made into ordinal number by adding the suffix -ხი.

Ordinal numbers are adjectives and can therefore be made into adverbs.

Pronouns

Personal

Not entirely happy with this

	Singular					Plural
	1	2	3 m	3 f	3 n	1	2	3
Nominative	ემ	ცომ	ო	ლიუ	ჰარ	ღე	ჟალ	ლარ
Accusative	მა	ცა	ომ	ლიუმ	ჰარმ	ღემ	ჟალმ	ლარმ
Dative	მას	ცას	ოს	ლიუს	ჰარს	ღეს	ჟალს	ლარს
Genitive	მაშ	ცაშ	ოშ	ლიუშ	ჰარშ	ღეშ	ჟალშ	ლარშ

Possession

The genitive personal pronouns are used as possessive pronouns.

The role of possessive adjectives is played by prefixes transparently related to their corresponding personal pronouns.

Or this

	Singular					Plural
	1	2	3 m	3 f	3 n	1	2	3
Prevocalic	ემ-	ც-	ო-	ლივ-	ჰ-	ღ-	ჟ-	ლარ-
Preconsonantal	ემა-	ცა-	ო-	ლი-	ჰა-	ღე-	ჟა-	ლა-

These prefixes often affect the placement of stress.

Verbs

Infinitives

Verbal infinitives are formed from roots with the addition of the suffix -(ე)თ.

Infinitives can be declined as if they were nouns. In such cases the -თ is removed. However, the nominative form retains the final consonant.

Conjugation

Verbs do not conjugate for person; they do conjugate for number, tense, mood, aspect and voice.

A plural subject is indicated by the prefix ი-.

The tense-mood-aspect combinations are:

• present/imperative: -Ø
• aorist: -ხ
• delimitative: -ფი
• imperfect: -ვა
• future: -თეჩ
• conditional: -მუ
• optative: -ზი

The final -თ is removed from infinitive before these suffixes are added.

Voices are:

• active: -Ø-
• passive: -ემ-
• middle: -ოჟ-

These are added before the tense-aspect-mood suffixes and delete any preceding vowel in the root.

Negation

Negation is shown by the addition of the prefix კა- to the verb.

Participles

Participles act as adjectives or adverbs.

There are four adjectival participles:

• present active: -სო
• past active: -სხი
• present passive: -ემსო
• past passive: -ემსხი

And two adverbial participles:

• present: -ს
• past: -სეხ

Reflexive

Prefix სამ- attached to the verbs to convey the reflexive.

This can also convey the auto-benefactive.

Syntax

Neutral word order: verb-subject-object (well, verb-subject-complement).

In subordinate clauses: subject-verb-object (subject-verb-complement).

Question words are not obligatorily fronted (except for focus). However, where question words are pro-adverbs they are found clause initially.

Adverbs (and adverb-like phrases) of time and place and placed at the beginning of the phrase.

Adverbs (et cetera) of manner precede that which they modify.

Subordination and coordination

Word formation and derivational morphology

Overview

Words are made up of that, if left bare, are usually nouns. Roots most often end in -ა, -ო or a consonant. Roots that end in a consonant add -ი to form a simple noun. In compounds the ი-less form is used. Note that some non-nominal roots may end in -ი. Roots that denotes qualities are usually adjectives by default, not nouns.

Prefixes are usually prepositions.

Roots of changeable non-abstract qualities are often adjectives (which may function as nouns) by default.

Compound nouns are head-final.

Negative

The negative prefix კა- can be used to indicate lack. When it is attached to a noun, the noun is put into the genitive case (singular or plural according to context). Note that due phonological rules, when this is attached to words that begin with consonant clusters, the stress of that word may shift.

Pragmatics

If the subject of a relative clause is the same as that in main clause, the personal pronoun may be dropped. This even occurs where the semantic subject is in the dative case in the main clause.

Reported vs direct speech

Lexicon

Vocabulary lists:

• Colours
• Days and months
• Orientation
• Weather
• Kinship
• Flora and fauna
• Countries
• Writing

Other words:

• Numerals
• Conjunctions
• Prepositions
• Swadesh list
• Loan words

Example text

Translation of Schleicher's fable:

ვაინ რა ხერინი

ჭენ ჟუყოს გიდიხ ვაინ, ქთი თივა კამუიშ, ხერიმი; სტივა ზუ სი ლარშ ურგამ ვოზომ; პერხივა ზუ სი ლარშ ბეყიმ ფერიმ; რა ქიმ პერხივა ზუ ჰანამ. ძარეხ ვაინ ხერინსი: "პელი ემაცწოროს, ნეჰუ ემ გიდი ჰანამ, ქთი ვომი ხერიმი". ითევიხ ხერინი: "ვაი, ოსკმი: პელი ღეწოროსი მირ ღე იგიდი ჰომ: სამზგირე ჰანა - ილირადინ - სი მუინშ ვაინშ სხამ შრომ; რა თი ვაი კამუიშ". გაგოსეხ ჰომ, ომბგასიხ ვაინ ჭენ მალომ.